Quote of the Week

Monsanto Exec Admits that Nature Is Smarter Than Biotech

- Consuelo Madre, vice president of Monsanto's global vegetable group, explaining why the company was using conventional breeding rather than genetic engineering to produce its vegetable seeds, in "Sprouting a New Line of Produce Seeds," by P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2011.

Huffstutter also points out that using traditional techniques allows Monsanto to "avoid the financial and consumer hurdles that would inevitably come with rolling out genetically engineered produce for a grocery store."

Label GMOs

Our best chance to win GMO labels in 2012 is to pass a California "Right2Know" ballot initiative. We're still at the very beginning of the process. The coalition has just filed initiative language this week, we need thousands of volunteers to gather signatures, and we're going to have to raise several million dollars to make the campaign successful. But, we're on the right track. This is the first step to taking down Monsanto.

Support the OCA

Stop Monsanto and Move the Organic Revolution Forward

Since the first battle over organic standards in 1998, OCA has been "growing the revolution" - fighting against genetically engineered foods, preserving strict organic standards, expanding the organic market, and spreading the good news that organic agriculture can sustainably feed the world while reversing global warming. The time is right to step up our efforts and move the Organic Revolution forward, but OCA needs your financial support to do so.

Urgent Alerts

Occupy Wall Street: For An Organic, Sustainable Revolution

When corporate money grinds the gears of democracy to a halt, when war is perpetual and economic crises are unending, individual demonstrations just aren't going to do it, it's time to dig in and make the protest permanent.

What better way to do that than with permaculture! Mobile Design Lab, Time's Up and the NYC Trash Network are on the scene at Occupy Wall Street with:

- a grey water system to recycle water used to wash dishes at the occupation's Food Not Bombs kitchen
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urban guerrilla gardening "seed bomb" workshops
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a pedal powered battery recharging station
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furniture, hand built from found materials

Urgent Alerts

Stop Frankenfish & Farmed Salmon Drug Factories!

If you've read our article "The 10 Freakiest Things About Frankenfish," you're probably saying, "OK, you got me at 'Frankenfish.' I'm not eating GMO salmon!" But, if you need one more reason to tell the Obama Administration not to give AquaBounty's eelpout-salmon combo the green light, consider this:

AquaBounty salmon grow deformed and diseased because their DNA is scrambled and they mature at an unnaturally fast rate. Then, these mutant aquatic lifeforms have to be raised in in-land tanks to reduce the chance that they'll escape and decimate wild salmon populations. The fish farms they'll be raised in will be virtual drug factories; loads of antibiotics will be used just to keep the fish alive until harvest.

Urgent Alerts

Stop Illegal Frankensugar!

What's worse than the USDA approving a new GMO? Doing it illegally!

In September 2009, the Center for Food Safety won an important legal victory when a federal court told the USDA they had approved Monsanto's RoundUp Ready (pesticide tolerant) sugar beets illegally, stating that "the
potential elimination of a farmer's choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically engineered food, is an action that potentially eliminates or reduces the availability of a particular plant and has a significant effect on the human environment." The court ordered the USDA to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement and ordered farmers to pull GMO sugar beets from their fields and Monsanto to halt the sale of their seeds.

But during this case's appeal, the USDA defied the court order went ahead and illegally approved 2011-2012 planting of GE sugar beets without the court-ordered Environmental Impact Statement. The Center for Food Safety is fighting that decision in separate litigation that is ongoing in the District of Columbia.

Now, even as Monsanto has saturated the market with USDA-approved illegal sugar beet seeds that will inevitably contaminate organic seed growers of a variety of related crops, the USDA has published the Environmental Impact Statement ordered in 2009. The only good news is that this opened up another 60 day public comment period.

We have until December 13 to tell the USDA that we want our choice to eat organic and non-GMO crops protected!

Video of the Week

So-Called "Natural" Cereals with GMOs?

Federal law requires that organic food products be produced promoting ecological sustainability, without the toxic inputs and genetically engineered ingredients common in the conventional food system.

Increasingly, organic products are forced to compete with products that claim to be "natural".

There are no guidelines or restrictions for foods labeled "natural". The term often indicates nothing more than meaningless marketing hype promoted by corporate interests seeking to cash in on the consumer desire for food produced in a genuinely sustainable manner.

A new video from the Cornucopia Institute explores the vast differences between organic cereal and granola products and so-called natural products, which contain ingredients grown on conventional farms where the use of toxic pesticides and genetically engineered organisms is widespread.

Sponsored Message

New Organic Flour & Grains Source that Helps OCA!

We have partnered with a great source for organic flour and organic and gluten-free flour and grains! Buffalo Valley Grains has a selection of over 70 organic items and their selection is continuously growing!

Their goal is to make organic products such as these more affordable to the general public, and their prices reflect just that! Choose items like Organic Buckwheat, Oat & Quinoa Flours; as well as Organic Amaranth, Millet, & Durum Berries; Organic Crystallized Cane Juice, Rolled & Steel Cut Oats, & Corn Grits - to name a few! They have added legumes and gluten-free mixes as well!

What makes this a special find is that you can order custom-packed product from Buffalo Valley Grains; meaning a minimum of two pounds is required - after that you can order as many pound increments as you wish! This way you can try a product without having to purchase a lot of it! They even have volume pricing for twenty-five pounds and over!

Organic Gluten-Free flours and grains are tough to find, but Buffalo Valley Grains has a great selection of 16 gluten-free products and plans on adding more!